While iPad shipments fell year over year in the June quarter, competing Android tablets saw huge gains, reducing Apple's share of worldwide tablet shipments to less than a third.

Apple remains the largest tablet maker in the world, according to the latest estimates published Monday by IDC. But it accounted for 32.4 percent of shipments in the second quarter of calendar 2013 ? well off from the 60.3 percent the company held in the same quarter a year ago.

"A new iPad launch always piques consumer interest in the tablet category and traditionally that has helped both Apple and its competitors," said Tom Mainelli, research director for tablets at IDC. "With no new iPads, the market slowed for many vendors, and that's likely to continue into the third quarter. However, by the fourth quarter we expect new products from Apple, Amazon, and others to drive impressive growth in the market."

While Apple's shipments slid 14.1 percent year over year, competing tablet makers who use Google's Android mobile platform all saw significant games. The second-largest tablet maker, Samsung, posted a 277 percent year over year gain to 8.1 million units, good for 18 percent of the market.

In third was Asus, which grew 120 percent to 2 million units, taking a 4.5 percent slice of shipments. Lenovo came in fifth with 313.9 percent growth, hitting 1.5 million units and 3.3 percent share.

Finally, in fifth place was Acer, which shipped 1.4 million units, or 3.1 percent of the total market, on 136.6 percent growth. In all, tablet shipments were up 59.6 percent from the same quarter in 2012, and reached 45.1 million total units.

In terms of platform, Android was found on 62.6 percent of tablets shipped in the second quarter, or 28.2 million units. iOS carried the same share of 32.5 percent in both software and hardware, as the platform is only available on Apple's iPad.

The platform that saw the largest growth during the quarter was unsurprisingly Microsoft's Windows, which surged 527 percent year over year. Tablets running Windows RT and Windows 8 weren't available until late 2012, meaning last year's June quarter saw virtually no Windows-based tablet sales.

"The tablet market is still evolving and vendors can rise and fall quickly as a result," said Ryan Reith, program manager for IDC's Mobility Tracker programs. "Apple aside, the remaining vendors are still very much figuring out which platform strategy will be successful over the long run. To date, Android has been far more successful than the Windows 8 platform. However, Microsoft-fueled products are starting to make notable progress into the market."

Of course, shipments and market share are only part of the story, as actual sales to customers are unknown, and Apple is still the undisputed leader in collecting the lion's share of profits from tablets. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook noted in his company's most recent quarterly earnings report that the latest Web browsing share data shows that the iPad accounts for 84 percent of tablet traffic.

"If there are other tablets being sold," Cook said, "I don't know what they're being used for."

If there's any reason why iPad sales has dropped in the June quarter its anticipation for a refresh of newer iPads.

I personally know a bunch of people holding back on buying iPad's now waiting for the newer models.

So no big deal.

This is what I think too. Its a market share snapshot of a 3 months timeframe prior to a launch of both the ipad mini and the ipad. But we will still have people here go on and on about shipped VS sales and trying to prove the numbers are wrong. To me, IDC numbers are close enough.

Let's get an iPad mini "lite" out there for $229. Unleash the high end Retina mini at $329. And make sure to keep the iPad 4 on sale for $399 after the iPad 5 debuts at $499. Let's kill these guys, Tim.

Until we see the web usage stats catching up, how can we conclude that the Android tablet consumer sales are catching up, much less surpassing those of Apple. Or are we to believe that somehow the use case for Android tablets is completely different than that for Apple tablets? sheesh...

Until we see the web usage stats catching up, how can we conclude that the Android tablet consumer sales are catching up, much less surpassing those of Apple. Or are we to believe that somehow the use case for Android tablets is completely different than that for Apple tablets? sheesh...

Regardless whether or not Apple's lunch is being eaten today or next week, it will happen eventually. The tablet market will become increasingly commoditized, there's just no preventing it. Apple needs to take this as a warning, like a whiff of ammonia under your nostrils, and realize that they have to stay on offense. Keep innovating and get as many iPads into the people's hands as you can. Stay hungry, stay aggressive. Don't sit around pooh poohing these numbers like you got the game all sewn up, use the info (however flawed it may be) for ammunition. That's what I'd do.

Let's get an iPad mini "lite" out there for $229. Unleash the high end Retina mini at $329. And make sure to keep the iPad 4 on sale for $399 after the iPad 5 debuts at $499. Let's kill these guys, Tim.

I could go for this. But only if Apple doesn't have to resort to plastic in order to achieve those prices for the mini. I'd hate to see that beautiful device go the way of the cheap iPhone just to meet a certain price. The other thing is how do they sell a mini for cheaper than the iPod touch? Unless they reduce the price on the touch with camera?

You're free to think for yourself. But what the numbers say is not even very controversial.

Even IDC's own Q1/Q2 is showing that Samsung's tablets down 8.8 to 8.1 million. It was careful not to draw any attention to that. That's nearly a 10% drop. And it was the launch quarter of the Galaxy Note 8!

Asus is down 2.7 to 2.0 million.

Amazon's 1.8 million dropped so hard its not even in the top five anymore. Neither is Microsoft.

Conveniently, "Others" grew slightly. But overall, IDC says total tablets slipped from 49.1 million to 45.1 million, down 8%.

And while it focuses on Apple not having new iPads, it can't say anything about Samsung having a new tablet nobody apparently wants. Instead, IDC has to look a year into the past to find any good news.

And on top, IDC is reporting over 11 million million tablets than Canalys sees.

I don't expect any respect from you, but maybe you can at least wait until the facts support whatever you're saying before you start mocking others.

Remember this when viewing statistics and this is all statistic since it is not based on any hard numbers, most all of them are being extrapolated.

"There are 3 kinds of liars in the world, First you got the everyday liar, followed by the damn liar (this guys going to hell for his lies) and at the top of the stack of liars is the Statistician."

Basically stats are just all lies, and you can cut and slice numbers how you want to get them to tell a story you want. Ask the Republicans how well their Statisticians did for them, it was a case of the Damn Liar believing the Statistician.

What most people do not realize this is very common place, it taught in business schools, when you do not have all the numbers just extrapolate them from some other information or numbers. When I went to business school I could not believe when I heard the Professors basically saying make up the numbers if you not find the real numbers.

Think about how much everyone here knows about these numbers and how wrong they are in total, Just think about how other industries and their made up numbers and how people just take them on faith.

Case and point even Walls Street know this is all bull, they are driving up apple stock price on a down day

I could go for this. But only if Apple doesn't have to resort to plastic in order to achieve those prices for the mini. I'd hate to see that beautiful device go the way of the cheap iPhone just to meet a certain price. The other thing is how do they sell a mini for cheaper than the iPod touch? Unless they reduce the price on the touch with camera?

The iPod touch has run its course. Time to put that baby out to pasture. Once the iPhone 5C debuts, there will be no need for it. Matter of fact, kill the entire iPod lineup. Then call the new wearable devices "iPods." There is no future in standalone music players.

As for a potential plastic case, I wouldn't mind at all so long as it was a high quality, durable plastic with a great feel. I wouldn't expect anything less than that from Jony Ive; I'm sure the iPhone 5C will be top notch in that department. It would also serve to make the mini even lighter, which would be a welcome byproduct.Edited by MacVicta - 8/5/13 at 1:32pm

Truth be told, it's a fine tablet, I just despise the aspect ratio. I'll see if the iPad mini has retina this fall, if not I'll just buy the latest iteration of the iPad mini. Screen size is perfect for my needs and I love the build and portability.

Having said all this, I will admit that Android 4.3 is pretty nice, operates smoothly. I'm still considering the Moto X, depending on reviews and if Apple has something major up it's sleeve with the iPhone 5s. Fingerprint recognition isn't enough for me unless it's tied to a wallet.

More on topic - It's Apple against dozens of other companies on tablet sales. There is no doubt they'll lose some ground, but that will likely change with a refreshed product.

(when Apple was leading comfortably) "Apple rules. The Android tablets don't have a chance!"

(now that Apple's falling behind) "The numbers are fake!"

Better to concentrate on quality. The iPad is still better than any of its competitors. Whether your neighbor has something else or not doesn't change that.

The problem isn't that the numbers don't support the desired outcome. The problem is that the numbers are not at all supported. By anything. There's no factual information in these research publications that provides any factual support for the numbers they present. Then it becomes a self fulfilling citation. Next you will see "As IDC reported ..." as being the evidence of facts, when the underlying thing that IDC published has no actual evidentiary support.

The problem isn't that the numbers don't support the desired outcome. The problem is that the numbers are not at all supported. By anything. There's no factual information in these research publications that provides any factual support for the numbers they present. Then it becomes a self fulfilling citation. Next you will see "As IDC reported ..." as being the evidence of facts, when the underlying thing that IDC published has no actual evidentiary support.

I hope they're not including customized solutions for businesses (have you seen the tablet (read: screens) in bathrooms now?) and mixing it with consumer markets.

The ONLY and I repeat ONLY reason market share matters at all is the ecosystem, and how that impacts developers. The ecosystem has to be healthy enough for developers to be eager to support it.

Besides customized solutions that won't likely be used to run a third-party developer's apps, there's also the issue of including whitebox Chinese tablets. If you're a developer in the Western world, how likely is it that your app will be downloaded in China? Yet the marketshare figures include huge numbers of tablets likely ONLY sold in China.

Really, worldwide market share figures aren't very relevant. It's much more useful to break it down by region. While some apps have a global appeal, I would imagine most bigger developers have different versions for different markets as well as local offerings.

In all these marketshare reports, all that seems apparent is that Apple hasn't yet cracked China significantly or other developing markets. In more developed markets, they're pretty dominant.

Did you guys see the LA Times article that said tablet sales were down across the board because Apple failed to release a new tablet in the second quarter of the year. I liked that the iPads came out in the middle of the year rather than at the end of the year. It's easier for everyone to get their hands on one and for Apple to manage the supply chain. Dumping all of your product out to the public at the end of the year seems like bad strategy and is just asking for bottle necks in the process.

I'm not saying the numbers are wrong... but where I am, I have never seen anyone (with the exception of my wife who bought an 80 $ piece of junk tablet running android) use anything but iPads. I'm serious... I cant wait to see someone show a "high end" adroid tablet they actually use.

Others is winning. Who is that? "White box" cheap tablets flooding from China?

If it is, why do you discount it? A user who buys a cheap Chinese tablet is a user who isn't buying an iPad. Those numbers matter, despite all the excuses for Apple that are appearing on this list. Other excuses so far include "People are waiting for the new iPad", which is also a knock against Apple for making them wait 18 months for a new model.

The problem isn't that the numbers don't support the desired outcome. The problem is that the numbers are not at all supported. By anything. There's no factual information in these research publications that provides any factual support for the numbers they present. Then it becomes a self fulfilling citation. Next you will see "As IDC reported ..." as being the evidence of facts, when the underlying thing that IDC published has no actual evidentiary support.

That wasn't my point. My point was that too many people here celebrate numbers, no matter how dubious, that look good for Apple, while criticizing numbers that look bad for Apple.

Better just to concentrate on quality differences. Ultimately, Apple's market share with the iPad was so high that it has nowhere to go but down. The web usage numbers are probably going to change eventually, too, with so many cheap tablets out there.

Better not to make a big deal of numbers that aren't going to stay favorable.

And best not to be hypocritical by celebrating numbers when they're good but calling them fake when they're bad.

Whilst I'm sceptical on those numbers based on the "cafe test" where it still seems like the iPad is the only product people are buying and using, one area that is hurting our family budget is the bunching up of both iPhone and iPad updates in the holiday season. If Apple think I can buy new iPhones for my wife and I, iPads for the kids and Mac Pros for work, all in the same quarter, they're dreaming. Seems an odd strategy to bunch up the hardware releases into one quarter annually, especially with the inventory king, Tim Cook, in charge. It also hurts PR as if there is no ongoing releases of kit, journalists seek out other, usually less flattering topics to write about. Surely iPhones, iPads, Software/WWDC, and "everything else (TV, watch, iPod etc)" could occupy a quarter each and share the limelight.